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Gas fumes are very flammable, but the gasoline itself will flow down and out of my garage, and the fire would be very easy to contain with a simple garden hose.
by danielweber 11y ago
Gas fumes are very flammable, but the gasoline itself will flow down and out of my garage, and the fire would be very easy to contain with a simple garden hose.
A gas can also will not light on fire just because it gets hit with a car. It would take malicious use of a gas can -- splashing it on a wall and then lighting it on fire -- to match the default configuration of a Powerwall.
- jws 11y agoOr a vapor reaching an open flame. Common source of human immolation.
- warfangle 11y agoYou ever try to put out a gasoline fire with a garden hose?
- dragontamer 11y agoWhile you are correct, you can at least snuff out a gasoline fire. Lithium fires do not require oxygen, so your typical Class ABC fire extinguishers won't actually work on it. You need a class D (dry powder) extinguisher, which is very rare and expensive.
- viewer5 11y ago> Lithium fires do not require oxygen I thought fire is by definition a combustion reaction, meaning some kind of material reacting with oxygen. What's fire, then? (I feel like a little kid, having to ask that...)
- TeMPOraL 11y agoSome substances bundle together their oxygen source (think of rocket fuel, or napalm), so they don't need to consume it from air.
- tedunangst 11y agoGenerally, a fast exothermic reaction. Oxygen may be the most popular oxidant, but not the only one. Lots of stuff burns in pure chlorine gas, for instance.
- CamperBob2 11y agoIt's possible for something to burn hot enough to split water molecules apart. I don't know if lithium metal qualifies, but that could be what the MSDS is referring to.
- warfangle 11y agoWhile true for lithium fires, a venting lithium-ion battery is not a typical lithium fire. According to the MSDS for lithium ion batteries, fires involving them can be extinguished with a typical ABC fire extinguisher. Lithium batteries (not the rechargeable kind) are the ones that need a class D extinguisher. Edit: > CO extinguishers, halon or copious quantities of water or water-based foam can be used to cool down burning Li- ion cells and batteries. Do not use for this purpose sand, dry powder or soda ash, graphite powder or fire blankets. > Extinguishing media Use water or CO2 on burning Li-ion cells or batteries http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg4/cg432/docs/msds/MSDS_LiIon.pdf http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg4/cg432/docs/msds/MSDS_LiIon.pdf
- dragontamer 11y agoUsing water on an electric fire sounds like a dumb idea to me. But yeah, the MSDS does seem to say that...
- warfangle 11y agoA venting lithium ion battery isn't usually an electrical fire.
- dragontamer 11y agoAnd what of all the molten wires that _were_ charging said battery?
- warfangle 11y agoOvercharging a battery isn't the only way to cause it to vent :) Obviously there should be a physically separate circuit for cutting off power in the event of catastrophe. That's pretty much rule-of-thumb for large li-ion battery banks.
- feld 11y agoI don't think you use the same gasoline as the rest of the planet if that's your experience.
- kbenson 11y agoIt's common advice not to leave rags that have gasoline on them sitting in your garage because in enough heat the fumes from the evaporating gasoline will combust. Gasoline is very volatile, we've just gotten fairly good at managing it.
- danielweber 11y agoedit: my karma https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=9471929&goto=threads%3Fid%3Ddanielweber https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=9471929&goto=threads%3...
- danielweber 11y agoedit: my karma http://i.imgur.com/rjNrXTc.gifv http://i.imgur.com/rjNrXTc.gifv
- CamperBob2 11y agoModeration is pretty weird in this thread. I got voted down for pointing out that the US power grid is likely to experience problems when entire residential neighborhoods full of Tesla owners try to charge their Model S at once. I don't think many people around here understand (a) just how efficient gasoline really is at storing energy, and (b) just how much energy is used by a typical passenger car.